ARLINGTON, Texas — The perennial national championship favorite against the underdog team of destiny, the teacher (Nick Saban) against his pupil (Mark Dantonio), all the tradition and winning muscle memory of 12-1 Alabama against the grit and determination of plucky 12-1 Michigan State, the high school All-Americans and five-stars of the Crimson Tide against the Spartans’ under-recruited stars.

Thursday night’s College Football Playoff semifinal at AT&T Stadium isn’t short on storylines. And the biggest one revolves around the two coaches, Saban and Dantonio.

“That seems to be the ongoing story these days, huh, coach?” Dantonio joked with Saban at Wednesday’s Cotton Bowl press conference.

For 40 minutes, they acted more like old friends than two coaches preparing to pummel one another with a shot at the national championship game at stake.

Saban, 64 and five years Dantonio’s elder, is two wins shy of tying Bear Bryant for the most national championships in the sport’s history, two wins away from winning his fourth crown in nine years at Alabama. But to get to University of Phoenix Stadium, the site of the national championship on Jan. 11, Saban will have to get by his good friend and his former school, a team very similar to the Crimson Tide — stout defensively, strong in the trenches, and at its best when the situation seems dire.

“It’s like looking in the mirror. Should be a very similar approach. I know it will be. Old-school football,” said Michigan State co-defense coordinator Harlon Barnett, who played for Saban with the Spartans when he was an assistant coach there in the late 1980s and again worked with him when Saban was an assistant with the Browns.

Barnett joked Michigan State has an advantage over Alabama’s other opponents because he and Dantonio both speak “Sabanese.”

“Then again, he knows both of us really well, too,” Barnett said.

The way the teams are built couldn’t be more different. While Alabama frequently sits atop the recruiting rankings, basically handpicking five-star recruits, Michigan State is known for its development, turning unsung prospects into college stars. The Spartans’ two best players, quarterback Connor Cook and defensive end Shilique Calhoun, were three-star prospects, under-recruited and unsung.

Perhaps that’s why Michigan State is often considered the underdog. Against Alabama — led by its third-ranked defense and Heisman Trophy-winning running back Derrick Henry — the Spartans, often considered the other team in their own home state, are double-digit underdogs. Ohio State, last year’s national champion, was supposed to emerge from the Big Ten, before Michigan State stunned the Buckeyes on Nov. 21 in Columbus.

“We love that role; we embrace it,” Cook said. “It’s kind of who we are as a program with the chip on our shoulder. No matter who we’re facing, if we are the underdog, if we are the favorite, no matter what, we go into each and every game trying to prove something.”

Saban and Dantonio met roughly four decades ago, when Dantonio was a promising defensive back at Zanesville High School in Ohio, and Saban a young assistant coach at Kent State. Dantonio would attend South Carolina, but the two would reconnect years later.

For five years, they worked together at Michigan State. Dantonio was Saban’s defensive backs coach as the Spartans reached four bowl games but failed to win more than nine games in a single season. Dantonio described the time for him as “five good years, five years with a lot of learning.”

“He’s truly a mentor of mine,” Dantonio said.

That success, however, is nothing compared to what Dantonio has done in the nine years he has been in charge in East Lansing, compiling an 87-32 record and producing five double-digit victory campaigns in the last six years.

Saban deserves plenty of credit, as one of the people who endorsed Dantonio for the job, telling then associate athletic director Mark Hollis that Dantonio’s attention to detail, discipline and integrity would elevate the program — the same qualities that have helped Saban rise to the top of college football himself.

“He’s certainly done a better job than I ever did there, I’ll tell you that,” Saban said earlier this month.

Now, Dantonio has the opportunity to one-up his former boss, and get Michigan State to the national championship game and within one victory of the school’s first title since 1966.

“I think the world should recognize what a great job he’s done,” Saban said Wednesday.